Interactive computing pioneer Doug Engelbart coined the term Collective IQ to inform the IT research agenda

Doug Engelbart was recognized as a great pioneer of interactive computing. Most of his dozens of prestigious awards cited his invention of the mouse. But in his mind, the true promise of interactive computing and the digital revolution was a larger strategic vision of using the technology to facilitate society’s evolution. His research agenda focused on augmenting human intellect, boosting our Collective IQ, enhancing human effectiveness at addressing our toughest challenges in business and society – a strategy I have come to call Bootstrapping Brilliance.

In his mind, interactive computing was about interacting with computers, and more importantly, interacting with the people and with the knowledge needed to quickly and intelligently identify problems and opportunities, research the issues and options, develop responses and solutions, integrate learnings, iterate rapidly. It’s about the people, knowledge, and tools interacting, how we intelligently leverage that, that provides the brilliant outcomes we…

This question made me conscious of the fact that the icons computer/smartphone and many web interfaces use are a metaphor for the way in which the industry has designed computers for a consumer market. That is, they are to be used to digitize and simulate old media.

For example, the use of the now-obsolete floppy disk to represent “save?”

The way this question is asked is interesting and encouraging. These icons no longer make sense to modern users. Another interesting question is what should replace them? However, without powerful outlooks, I suspect it’s going to be difficult to come up with anything that really captures the power of this medium that is computing, and we’ll just use the default of ourselves as metaphors.